


Hydralicious

by WhatEvenAmI



Series: It Takes a Village [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Babies, Cockblocking, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute, Cute Kids, Dad!Rollins, Dad!Rumlow, Embarrassment, Flirting, HYDRA Dads, HYDRA Husbands, Hair, Hair-pulling, Kid Fic, M/M, MCU AU, MCU AU Fest, No one gets hurt, Shameless Ogling, Sweet, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tumblr Prompt, a little bit i guess, i guess, man crush, no Hydra, parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatEvenAmI/pseuds/WhatEvenAmI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The HYDRA husbands encounter a striking stranger on the bus ride home.</p><p>Their ogling may be subtle, but their child is most certainly not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a 'single parent' Tumblr prompt: _you crouched down to coo at my baby but i forgot to tell you their favorite thing to do is to play with people’s hair and now they won’t let go of you._

The level of exhaustion Brock feels after work is stunning. It's hard to believe he can reach this level of not-caring. Alex is the only thing keeping him going.

Jack's just picked him up from day care. Apparently, they're going to have to meet with Steve about their boy. Not even two yet, not even fucking _talking,_  and already bossing the other kids around. Brock would be exasperated, but the adoption agency had emphasized the fact that he'd been born into a pretty abusive situation, and with that might come a fair deal of issues. So far, he seems okay. If he's too bossy, well, as problems go, a parent could really face worse.

But Alex is only a baby. There's still time, if those issues are going to surface.

He pushes aside those thoughts in favor of bouncing the giggling, squirming bundle on his lap. Steve said Alex wouldn't go down at naptime today; doesn't he ever get tired?

 _Brock_ is tired, as he bounces his little boy on his knees while Alex squeals in delight. And Jack is tired, slumped over from lugging the kid around. His head rests on top of Brock's, his hand reaching out every so often to ruffle Alex's newly-acquired tufts of fluff. Alex throws back his head, giggling open-mouthed and earning some irritated glances from other tired commuters (well, who are they to judge? Don't any of them have kids?). Brock despairs of ever getting this baby to sleep tonight, although sometimes putting him down in front of the TV gets him peaced out and drifting off.

(Yeah, yeah, you're not supposed to encourage that shit, and before he had a kid himself Brock had been firmly in the no-television camp. It's not babysitting in a box, it's not _healthy_. But you let things slide, when you've got kids. They've had Alex for nearly a year now and it didn't take them long to get off their high horse about parenting.)

An elbow slides into his ribs. "Damn," Jack mutters into his ear, " _Look_ at that guy."

Brock doesn't get much of a glance in before Alex screeches and bangs his fists against his legs, demanding attention. But he immediately knows which guy Jack's talking about. He's tall. And  _big,_ all bulky muscle and darkness; black clothes and shiny hair hanging over his face. He's terrifying in  _just_ the right way. Hot _damn_.

"Hang on, buddy." His legs are getting tired from the constant bouncing. He quickly shifts Alex into a standing position, holding him up against his chest. Alex makes a noise of protest, then his hand latches onto Brock's hair and he's content again.

"Jesus, those abs," Brock mutters back with what most definitely isn't envy. Okay, he gets in a pretty intense workout at least a few times a week. He likes to think he keeps himself in damn good shape, but this guy is on a level of his own.

"That  _ass_ , is more like it. I'd like to grab onto that and bite in like a—"

"Watch it, moron, the kid can _hear_ you." Brock squeezes Alex protectively.

"He's too little to understand. Aren't you, kiddo?" Jack pinches Alex's nose and the baby giggles again. Brock's trying to hold back his dumbass goofball grin, but nothing does that warm fuzzy shit to him like Jack being a total dopey-eyed sap over the baby.

Then Jack's eyebrows go up, and Brock turns just in time to see the big buff guy sliding into the seat next to him. His thigh is pressed to the stranger's, and  _damn_ this dude did not skip leg day. Rock-hard and Brock can _feel_ the slightest flex of his muscles.  _Not now, boner, not now._

Under his hair, the man's eyes are jarring. They don't fit the image Brock had had in mind; they're bright blue, friendly and open. He makes a face at Alex and Alex makes one back. He doesn't appear intimidating or dominating anymore, sticking his tongue out and widening his eyes at the baby. _  
_

Then he leans forward a little, hair swinging forth, and before Brock can warn him that's not the best idea, Alex lunges forward and latches on with a chubby fist, yanking the stranger towards Brock.

"Alex,  _no_ —sorry, man." Brock says hastily while Jack, that asshole, shakes with repressed laughter. He's trying to detach Alex from the man's hair, but the little fucker's got an iron grip. His face is burning, but the man gives him a forgiving smile. "It's okay. Kids, I know."

He's trying to pull his hair free, too, and Brock sees something he hadn't noticed before—a metal prosthetic where his left arm would be. Alex, with his apparent sixth sense for capitalizing on awkward situations, immediately reaches for the shiny thing with his free hand, clambering right into the stranger's lap. _  
_

_"Alex!"_ Not that Brock wouldn't like to get in the man's lap and pull his hair, too. But for fuck's sake, the kid's got a lot to learn about _subtlety_. "I am so sorry," he mutters, embarrassed as hell. Jack's pulling out a bag of cookies, trying to coax Alex back to them, but the baby takes no notice, jumping up and down and yanking on the man's hair.

"It's all right, really. I'm James, by the way."

"Brock. And I really am sorry. He likes hair and he's got no manners."

"We were all at that age once." James smiles and pokes Alex's tummy with the prosthetic, which is actually  _really_ damn impressive, like the guy's got an actual robot hand. He catches Brock staring and shrugs. "Work injury. Bad situation—I got out, but not before I ended up with this. It's not so bad, though. Technology nowadays and all, thing actually comes in handy—uh, no pun intended." 

Jack groans, and James cracks a smile. Alex begins to whine, impatient with every moment he's not the center of attention. 

"Had a situation like that myself. Still got some of the burn scars, and the bastards didn't exactly give me compensation." Brock winces, remembering; sometimes, on bad nights, those scars still feel tight and stiff, ready to crack open at the slightest movement, like they did when his body was healing. That had been a rough time—if he hadn't had Jack, Brock isn't sure he could have gotten through it at all. Jack's the one who paid his bills, put ointment on his burns, got his ass in and out of the damn bath. Jack fought for compensation, cooked his meals and kept his place clean, talked him through the worse days. He was the one who still gave a damn when Brock had pretty much given up on his life.

"Jesus," James grimaces, "I'm sorry, man, that sucks. At least the people I was with covered this for me." He gestures with the metal hand, and Alex makes another grab for the shiny object. James waves it over his head and Alex reaches up, enthralled. "See? It's got its perks. My sister calls me a cyborg assass—" he breaks off awkwardly. Was he about to say  _assassin?_ Who exactly is the man now holding their son? "—like I said, it was a bad situation. I got out. But that was all a while back." _  
_

Brock wants to know more, but it's clear that James would rather avoid the topic.

Alex chooses exactly that moment to provide a distraction, with the scrunched-up face and accompanying grunt that every parent of an infant knows all too well. "Oh  _God,"_ Brock  _swears_ his son picked this moment on purpose. Of _course_ it had to be while he was talking to the hot guy. "Here, give him to me. Trust me, you don't wanna deal with this."

"It's our stop coming up, anyway," Jack's getting to his feet, slinging his bag over his shoulder. Brock reaches for Alex. Real charmer tonight, their baby; he  _still_ won't let go of James's hair. He makes an indignant noise and grabs on tighter. 

"Sorry. I guess he likes you. Thinks he can take you home with us." Brock finally succeeds in detaching Alex's hand, and he begins to whine. "Shhh. You're fine, buddy. You're fine. You _really_ need a change, but you're fine." Brock bounces him a little to quiet him.

"Kid's got taste.  _I'd_ take you home with us," Jack says, raising an eyebrow. Brock elbows him; apparently their baby isn't the only one who's a little too forward. 

James gives them a sly little smile that makes _Brock_ want to grab his hair and take him home, right now. "May have to take you up on that," he returns, as smooth as the hand now sliding a scrap of paper deep into Brock's front pocket. His breath catches. "You gentlemen have a good night."

"You too," Jack says. James  _winks_ at them through the window as Brock steps onto the sidewalk. And _boom_ , there go his panties. In a manner of speaking.

"And there go your panties," Jack mutters in his ear. Brock elbows him again. "Seems like Alex is quite the charmer. Somehow.  _I_ can't figure it out." He leans over to kiss the top of Alex's head, and then Brock's ear. He nuzzles down into his neck, tickling with his tongue and smirking when Brock jumps. "Let's head home, huh? Gotta get him changed, STAT."

Brock gets Alex situated under his arm and they start off, their heads already filled with so very many heart-racing thoughts of the magnificently intimidating former assassin with a soft spot for little babies and dumbass clueless parents. Obviously a man after Brock's own stupid fuzzy heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, technically not 'single parent', but I couldn't resist the HYDRA husbands being cute dumbasses together, or the idea of Alexander Pierce being a highly demanding baby who won't let go of Bucky's hair.
> 
> Hydralicious is a type of shampoo by Herbal Essences. Saw a lot of Winter Soldier-related hair jokes and couldn't resist that either.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The HYDRA husbands are having a guest over. This was meant to be a night full of all kinds of sex.
> 
> They really should've hired a babysitter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felt too sick to engage in life responsibilities and too stressed to work on anything serious, so I did this.

He waited a couple days before getting in touch with James. You didn't want to seem  _too_ eager.

"Just fucking text him, dumbass," Jack kept saying. Jack's never cared about seeming too eager. They'd met at the gym, flirting shamelessly on the sparring mat, which is where Jack had first fucked him that very same night after hours. 

When he did send the first text, he had the baby on his lap. Of course Alex had to grab the shiny object, and so Brock's first text to James, rather than being well thought-out and flirty and ever-so-slightly suggestive, was simply a  _"gh###*asbjyukuj"_. 

Ever the charmer, Alex.

A couple lunch-break meetings had come of it, but those had been rushed and it was impossible to coordinate three schedules at once. So they'd decided to meet after work. 

They  _could_ have been smart and just gotten a babysitter, but that would have taken too much common sense, wouldn't it? So James will be here in about ten minutes, and Alex is still wide awake.

It fucking figures; if nothing gets him riled up, he's usually pretty reliable about getting sleepy around nine or so, and they'll have him out like a light. Of course now that James is coming over he's up and giggling and wanting to play.

They've tried  _everything_. They gave him warm milk and he chugged it running through the halls. It hadn't even slowed him down. (Well, he'll be able to handle his liquor when he hits college.) They put on calming music and he started dancing in the kitchen, grinning and waving his arms in the air. They gave him a bath and put him in fuzzy pajamas, but he's still crashing off the walls.

"Let's just put him down, see if he sacks out," Jack suggests, scooping up the wiggling child. Alex bounces on his hip, waving his chubby fists; Brock knows a lost cause when he sees one, but he still follows Jack to the darkened nursery, humming a little and hoping against hope that it helps.

Alex catches sight of the crib and a look of betrayal crosses his little baby face. The grin fades, and for a split second, he's completely still.

_Oh no._

His face scrunches up and he begins to wail, gaining in volume with each passing second.

"Oh, buddy, what's the matter?" Jack murmurs, bouncing him in his arms, "Come on. It's night-night time."

"Night-night time with _Max_ ," Brock tries, plucking Alex's stuffed puppy from the crib. "Look, kiddo, it's Max."

Max is knocked to the floor by a flailing fist. Down the hall, the doorbell rings.

" _Fuck_."

"Language!"

"Go get that, I'll get him."

So Brock goes to answer the door, unshowered and wearing a shirt stained with mashed banana. He tries to rake his hair into place with one hand. 

He greets James with Alex's screaming echoing in the background. Porch light's busted, but he can still make out James's grimace. He's dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket. He manages to pull off his striking, imposing look despite having his hair in a messy bun. 

"He usually goes down pretty easily," Brock says apologetically. "Come in, we have food. Can get you a beer, if you want one."

"Beer sounds great," James says. From inside the house, Alex's wailing pitches up into a scream. Brock winces. "I can take your jacket."

Which gives him an excuse to brush his hands over the well-muscled arm and the shiny metal one. Brock's not jealous, not at all. He's totally not wondering how many push-ups James can do.

(Brock can do seventy-five, not that anyone's asking or anything.)

They sit at the kitchen table, drinking beer and eating some of the apple bread Jack's mother made. Alex cries resolutely through fifteen minutes of small talk, during which Brock learns that James knows Alex's day care provider (they were in a relationship, so wow, that's awkward), that he currently works against his former employers (the bad-situation guys; Brock tries really fucking hard to resist probing) and that he can eat an entire pan of apple bread in one sitting.

(Brock keeps insisting that he take more; Jack's mother gives them more food than they can eat. They still have some of her pineapple cake and a tin of brownies, and Brock's trying to keep himself in shape.)

And still Alex wails.

"Well," Brock offers awkwardly, "Crying'll wear him out. Jack shouldn't be long."

James's lips turn up in a smile and he stands, hand-combing his hair out of the bun. And Brock knows what  _that_ means (because the hair is just perfect for pulling, and if he gets a little grabby James has proven he can take it.) "Think he'd appreciate it if we got ready for him?"

Brock leads the way to the living room, already half-hard. "Could surprise him right when he comes out." And then James's hands are on his shoulders, one leg hooked around his to throw off his balance, and he's being pushed down against the couch.

Now, it's not that Brock doesn't _want_  James to make him taste leather for the next hour or so, but just hold  _on_ a minute. Who exactly said James was going to dominate this evening? Who said Brock Rumlow surrenders that easily?

He flips himself onto his back, wrestling for control and already knowing he's going to lose. James writhes up over Brock, straddling his thighs and easily pinning his wrists to the armrest with an unyielding metal hand. He rocks his hips a little, teasingly, smirking.  He leans over and just lets the ends of his hair tickle his cheeks. "Tell me something, what was _that_?" Brock arches his back in an attempt to roll them over. "What  _was_ that?"

And he's not kidding himself, James has about fifty pounds on him, but it's not like he can just let that go _by_. He jerks his hips up, pushing hard enough that James has to let go of his wrists and grab his shoulders for balance. He shoves Brock down, whispering into his neck. "Come on, I  _know_ you can do better than that." 

And he's gearing up to show him just _what_ he can do when Jack comes into the room, bouncing a still-fussing Alex. "Lost cause— _whoa._ You bastards were gonna start this party  _without_ me?"

"Jesus—" Brock struggles to get up. "How many times do I have to tell you to watch your language around the kid?" 

James slides off of Brock and pulls him to his feet. "Just thought I'd get Brock all ready for you." Brock shoots him a glare—it was _so_ going to be the other way around—and gets a raised eyebrow in return. "But...I'm guessing that's, uh, that's not really happening tonight?"

Alex sees James and instantly begins to quiet, whimpering. "Son of a bitch," Jack mutters. Alex whines, leaning over toward James. "Traitor baby."

James grins and reaches over, settling Alex on his hip. He's still mad, pouting, but that only makes James laugh. Alex pushes out his lower lip and glares, ever the diva.

"What do you think, kiddo? You gonna settle down, huh?"

Alex grabs onto his hair and yanks.

"Sorry, guys," Jack says, "Little shit's outlasted me. I'm beat."

"For the millionth fucking time, watch your mouth."

Of course Alex won't let anyone but James hold him, so the poor bastard can't even excuse himself and go home. To Brock's surprise, he honestly doesn't seem to mind.

They settle on the couch, Brock nestled in between Jack and James. For a while he's hoping that television will lull Alex to sleep and this can still happen, but Jack crashes out long before the baby does, drooling on Brock's shirt. On his other side he's facing a similar onslaught from Alex, though he doesn't have the excuse of being asleep. He just drools a lot.

James goes next, cheek pressed to his shoulder, and for all the intimidating presence he's displayed, he's actually pretty damn adorable when he sleeps. His hand clasps Brock's sleeve and his hair flutters when he breathes. 

Alex is still bouncing on his lap, wide awake. Brock sighs. "Looks like it's just you and me, kid."

He flips to Netflix and the two watch Sesame Street late into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Sara decides to write Baby Pierce cockblocking his parents rather than the HYDRA husbands and Bucky having sex.


End file.
